August 15, 2012

"They’ve said it. Every Republican’s voted for it. Look at what they value and look at their budget and what they’re proposing. Romney wants to let the — he said in the first 100 days, he’s going to let the big banks once again write their own rules — unchain Wall Street," Biden said. "They’re going to put y’all back in chains. He’s said he’s going to do nothing about stopping the practice of outsourcing."

I'm saying idiocy, but perhaps it is "anger and hate." Anger and hate... from loveable little Joe?

"They're going to put y'all back in chains" is....

Anger and hate.

Anger and hate and idiocy.

Idiocy.

Reckless Biden-talk, but not that dumb or mean.

Clever rhetoric that succeeded in luring Romney into sounding angry/hateful.

Demeaning to the people he was speaking to -- "y'all" gives that away.

I like Biden, being from Delaware, he was my Senator. As a person, he's made mistakes, but he always has seemed genuinely nice (if daft.) But, since he hitched along with Obama, he's just been meaner and meaner.

Remember the Obama ad insulting McCain for being unable to type? Because McCain was crippled due to torture? Remember who came out saying that the ad went too far and was wrong? And then who was forced to change his story? Biden should've walked away then. Now, they have him saying y'alls and whispering that Republicans want to enslave people in the South.

It's kind of a shame that someone like Biden will most be remembered for being a goof on the campaign trail instead of what he could've been.

Matthew: there is no getting around the fact that Biden and other long-serving Congress critters had a big part in the federal govt's insolvency. Almost all of them are to blame and perhaps should be prosecuted for financial malfeasance.

Yeah, Shiloh. Romney ran negative against his opponents. But that was always business. You could tell he found it kind of awkward; his nervous laugh, the stuttering.

The speech last night? It's personal. Romney has been personally offended. This wasn't an in-the-family disagreement. He's been accused, literally, of targeting a gay child for cruel torture, allowing a woman to die from cancer and cheating on his taxes for 10 years.

That's why he had his Medicare ad waiting to unleash on Obama, just like his Bain counter-punch. He knows how to play the game, but now that he -personally- has been attacked, the game is on.

I like the phrase "intellectually exhausted" that Romney uses to further his remarks.

They have some good wordsmiths as speech writers, carefully avoiding pejoratives while still arguing Obama isn't up to the job anymore.

He's capable, but just tired. He's exhausted. He tried, but it wasn't enough and now he's worn out so can't contribute any more. For his own good, let him sit on the bench. It's okay not to vote for him, indeed it's for his own good.

I know politics ain't beanbag and to become a career politician you have to divest yourself from a certain amount of class and principle but this just reaches the level of school ground taunting. If there is such a thing as a self respecting Democrat, they should be embarrased.

I'm sure by next week the Obama/Biden campaign will have loved on to Your Mama jokes about Romney and Ryan.

[Y]ou don’t hear any answers coming from President Obama’s re-election campaign. That’s because he’s intellectually exhausted, out of ideas, and out of energy. And so his campaign has resorted to diversions and distractions, to demagoguing and defaming others. This is an old game in politics; what’s different this year is that the president is taking things to a new low.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

In 2008, Candidate Obama said, “if you don’t have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare voters.” He said, “if you don’t have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from.” And that, he told us, is how, “You make a big election about small things.”

That was Candidate Obama describing the strategy that is the now the heart of his campaign.

His campaign and his surrogates have made wild and reckless accusations that disgrace the office of the Presidency. Another outrageous charge came a few hours ago in Virginia. And the White House sinks a little bit lower.

This is what an angry and desperate Presidency looks like.

Politics aside, Obama's supporters should be ashamed, not only of the debased rhetoric, but of Obama's utter betrayal of the hope he inspired four years ago.

I disagree. The Romney campaign is taking the values of the Left and holding them to them.

Division and anger. Those are precisely what Obama modeled himself as opposing in 2008. Hope and change are now division and anger. If Obama is perceived as those things, he loses his entire image.

Hate. Think in terms of hate speech. Anyone who is perceived of as using hate speech is tossed out from civilized society. And note that it is not even about the intent of the speaker, but how it is received. Labeling Biden as a purveyor of hate speech instantly puts the campaign on the defensive, to show why aren't hypocrites to their defined own value system.

Romney was interviewed on CBS' morning show and was asked about Biden's remark. Unfortunately, the news anchor cleaned up Biden's remark for him. She asked Romney why he would be upset about Biden saying that Republicans wanted to "put the middle class in chains"?

The rephrasing removed much of what was offensive in Biden's remarks. Most of those watching wouldn't have understood from the question the racial implications of what Biden said in front of a largely black audience -- that Republicans want to "put y'all back in chains." The only group in the US that can be put back in chains are African-Americans. Clearly, Biden was saying Republicans want to return to the days of slavery.

Given the history of the two political parties, this is particularly offensive. It was the 1st Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, who ended slavery and it was Republicans who broke Democrat led filibusters to enact the civil rights laws of 1950's and 60's. Republicans are rightfully proud of this heritage and to suggest that Republicans want to go back to slavery is particularly repugnant. The party was formed over opposition to slavery! In many ways it is a worse slur than suggesting that someone would idly stand by an let someone's wife die of cancer. (Not that anyone would ever make such a ridiculous charge.)

Imagine the outrage if Romney or Ryan had said this before a significantly African-American audience (e.g., Romney's speech at the NAACP convention). He'd be vilified for using slavery rhetoric and for descending into racially stereotypical argot. But it's a Democratic vice president who said it, so black opinion leaders and the media are just fine with it.

How long have we been listening to this man's brain farts? The earliest my memory goes back is 1987, when he led the Senate Judiciary Committee's star chamber, er, "hearings" (read: serial polemics) on Robert Bork's nomination to the Supreme Court. And it's been downhill ever since. What's hilarious is that his tribe (that would be liberals) still insists he's intelligent. Right. Thank you Delaware.

Ryan and Romney are getting a crash course in heckling. They have handled it well, so far and it will get worse. IT will not benefit those paying the hecklers unless R%R get shaken but they don't look like it will get to them. Remember Muskie's crying ? That was a heckler.

As a Southerner, the "ya'll" jumped out at me when I first heard Biden last night. I thought, "Biden, you ain't no Southerner. Take your bullshit and shove it where the sun don't shine. You're a typical Democrat fanning the flames of hate and racism." (I hardly ever say or think the word "ain't," but, when I hear an uppity Yankee politician use it to pretend he's relating to us Southerners, it really gets me dander up.

The Dems are truly exposing their hate filled hearts this election season. Truly the Party of Swine.

Robert Cook said..."Remind me again of the Obama plan to prevent outsourcing?"

He hasn't one. See? Like I keep pointing out, Obama and Romney are more alike than different, and they're both disasters!

We're screwed whoever is the next president.

Hi. Bob. Can I call you, Bob?

Sometime next year a domestic company will begin taking astronauts up to the space station at a hell of a lot less than 23 million a pop.But please. Give us your insights on "outsourcing" american jobs. I haven't had a good laugh today.

So, President Obama and Vice President Biden are campaigning at a level they are comfortable with: in or near the gutter. Issues have no place in such a campaign. Expect an orgy of it from now until November, and use their statements to assess their character.

This speech by Romney and all the ads he's running in Florida to scare the shit out of seniors about Obama's raiding Medicare to pay for Obamacare show Romney wants to win bad. I have to give Romney some credit here for going for the jugular.

mccullough said...This speech by Romney and all the ads he's running in Florida to scare the shit out of seniors about Obama's raiding Medicare to pay for Obamacare show Romney wants to win bad. I have to give Romney some credit here for going for the jugular.

8/15/12 12:57 PM

You forgot one important detail, what the Romney ads are saying happens to be true. Facts are stubborn things.

He hasn't one. See? Like I keep pointing out, Obama and Romney are more alike than different, and they're both disasters!

Well I guess I would like to know how the Federal Govt. can dictate to a private company where it can set up shop. I would think offering incentives to keep a company on our shores is the preferred method. Preventing is a bit totalitarian don't you think?

The nice thing about people who rail against "outsourcing" is that you can easily identify them as people who don't actually know anything about the subject. It is like hearing a white politician complain about "hippity-hop music".

Personally, I like to point out to them that only a handful of countries, such as North Korea, have successfully prevented their citizens from paying foreigners to do work for them. It hasn't been worth the effort.

(f) All of the above. Biden's comment was full of anger and hate, and angry, hateful idiocy. And it was reckless, dumb and mean. All too typical of reckeless, dumb, mean Biden-talk. It might have been thought of as clever rhetoric, if it had succeeded in luring Romney into sounding as angry and as hateful as the dumb, mean, demeaning Biden. But it didn't. Still it was demeaning to the people whom Biden was speaking to -- "y'all" gives that away.

I think that covers it. An Althouse Poll, wherein all of the multiple-choice answers served as better new coverage of the event than anything in the New York Times or on public radio.

And what is wrong with enslaving black people again? Just think of all the ills of the country it would serve.

Cheap labor. We can send all the illegals home.Prison overcrowding. Hell we got most of 'em in prisons anyway. Lets break up the prisons to the highest bidder.Deficit reduction. See above.Crime. They ain't gonna have the energy to do anycrime after a full day of working, and singing spirituals.Unwed childbirths. Don't even keep that as a statistic anymore, just breed 'em like any other domesticated animal.Drugs. Everyone knows they only sell 2 things downtown...drugs and malt liquor.Inner ciyt blight. They'll all be at the fields.Unemployment. They'll be employed, just not paid.Violence. Idle hands are the devils workshop.

Sarcasm off

Only a dim-ocrat can think like Joe, and Shiloh. Everyone else has to act rationally.

"They have some good wordsmiths as speech writers, carefully avoiding pejoratives while still arguing Obama isn't up to the job anymore.

He's capable, but just tired. He's exhausted. He tried, but it wasn't enough and now he's worn out so can't contribute any more. For his own good, let him sit on the bench. It's okay not to vote for him, indeed it's for his own good."

What was that line in a Dr. Who episode... the Prime Minister says the Doctor has no power over her and then the Doctor claims he can put the Prime Minister out of office with five words (or six or four or whatever), and then he walks past her aide and says... "doesn't she look... tired... to you?" or something to that effect.

Is it possible for the accuser be guilty of the accusation? When the accusation is about being hateful and divisive, it almost always is not only possible but also a sure thing. Love you... go pick up some good work, please.

Synova, I don't often take credit, but it could have been me. Six words.

"Don't you think she looks tired?"

---now I waste my time:---

Shiloh, I knew a kid like you in high school. (SRSLY - your name isn't Jonathan, is it?) There is no remedy except the hands (which works). Certainly you are not an honest person who can be reasoned with. You're not even really listening.

This being the Internet, we will just have to endure you till you grow weary.

I wonder, will you be weary when Obama loses?

There is a philosophical concept called "falsifiability." If your arguments are not capable of being proved wrong - that is, that they cannot be put to the test - then they're not really arguments.

You don't even try to make arguments. You make noise.

What do you even gain? The hope that your hatred - and it really is hatred that drives you no matter how jovial you play - will cause one of our cells to turn cancerous? Or failing that, that one of us will get a headache? Or that you will affect Althouse's coverage a jot, tittle or iota?

If that last, you're frankly stupid. All you have to do to "get her vagina to drain into the gutter" is to butter her up. Lol, ask tradguy or whoever was trying it the other day.

Crack could do it the other way, like what you're trying to do - I bet if he had met Althouse in college he woulda pimped her out and become a multimillionaire - but you're not Crack.

Hell must have frozen over. I will be voting for Obama, something I could not have imagined a week ago. But now that the Vice President has revealed that Romney plans to bring back slavery, what choice do I have? And I will have to contribute to the SOB too, and max out, which I really can't afford. But you do what you have to do - slavery is serious evil.

A shout out to Biden. I didn't even know slavery was an issue in this campaign. Thanks, Joe.